


To Watch the World Move

by lal nila syrin (lalnilasyrin)



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Dannyversary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3677547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalnilasyrin/pseuds/lal%20nila%20syrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans fascinated him—they were so short-lived, so insignificant as individuals despite their grandness in numbers, so short-sighted and never able to see the bigger picture painted all across time… Yet in spite of all that, a single human could change the course of history, and he had always only watched as the simple decisions of a single person changed the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Watch the World Move

**Author's Note:**

> I did something with Clockwork last Dannyversary, so I figured I'd do that this year too. Inspired by [this drawing](http://promsien.tumblr.com/post/115357462859/clockwork-must-have-seen-some-really-sad-futures) by [promsien](http://tmblr.co/m_gF1qAv1Km5k5HkWEwfB8A).
> 
> Happy 11th Dannyversary~

Clockwork was the master of time—he was all powerful, omnipotent, ancient, _timeless_.

He watched over all—he saw the paths time would take and how they changed and split and forked and twisted and  _stopped_.

But that was all he could do.

Humans fascinated him—they were so short-lived, so insignificant as individuals despite their grandness in numbers, so short-sighted and never able to see the bigger picture, the one painted all across time… Yet in spite of all that, a single human could change the course of history, and he had always  _watched_  as the simple decisions of a thousand single men changed the world.

There were as many dimensions, as many branches in the tree of time as there were the decisions made by these so tiny beings.

There was the woman running late for work who forgot her cell phone, who was spared her life when she went back to get it, because if she hadn’t she would have been the victim of a terrorist attack on the towers in New York. If she hadn’t gone back she wouldn’t have gone on to become the hero many needed, in the time after the attack—she was a pillar of support for many, for strangers, and in another time she was just another faceless victim. And when the next acts of terrorism brought fear to her people, she would be there instead of in the ground.

There was the man who invented a new dish for his restaurant, who decided to give it to the poor kid who was rummaging through his garbage for leftovers. Even if it was the starvation talking, the kid liked it enough to give his sincere opinion—and charmed by his honesty, the chef offered him a job as a bus boy. The boy would end up becoming his apprentice, and go on to become a great chef in his own right, and when he would open up his own restaurant years down the line, it would be for people who he used to be like. He would give food to the homeless kids with no money, and give jobs to those who wanted one, and his offered kindness would spur more kindness, and it would keep spreading—all because of a man who just wanted someone to test out his new recipe. The chef had inspired the boy to be better than he was, and if he hadn’t done that first act of kindness, the kid would have done worse than stealing—and he would have kept doing worse and worse until desperation made him a murderer.

There was the child who drowned in the pool while trying to get her toy, and there was her father who tried to save her. He would fight with his wife and place blame on everyone else, and drink his sorrows away. In one dimension he chose to sober up and make up with his wife, and together they remade their family—and their next daughter would end up becoming the State Senator who changed the education system in her town, and the students under her system would go on to greater, bigger things.

In another dimension the man got in his car after a fight at the bar, and find another death on his hands—the death of a college student whose family and friends would decide bitterness was better than forgiveness. They would put the man in jail, and start petitions and rallies to change the alcohol regulation laws and the severity of DUI charges. They would succeed, but the reinforcement would cause rebellion, and the only product of their efforts was the highest rate of DUI accidents in ten years.

The possibilities were endless, and Clockwork could see it all.

But he could never  _interfere_.

Humans were young and foolish and so very naive, compared to a being like him. Humans were fascinating and so full of emotion and movement and their lives moved on and on and never stopped even as one human died—another would be born. Clockwork loved the humans—he remembered what it was like to be one, he remembered the warmth of a beating heart and all the emotions that mixed him up and confused him.

He saw all the wrongs humans could do, but he saw all the rights too—and the vigilance of the just never ceased to amaze him.

When he watched the world move, the clock ticking in his chest where a heart should have been, he felt lonely and old and tired, because he could only watch—he couldn’t fix the humans’ problems, no matter how much he wanted to. He wanted to step in and tell the chef to feed the homeless child, he wanted to tell the man who lost his daughter that he should try sobering up. He wanted to be as good as he knew humans could be.

But it wasn’t his place anymore—he was a ghost, he was dead, he had no right to interfere with the living no more than the living had any right to the world of the dead while their hearts still beat in their chests. Their time moved without his interference, and for all he was the Master of Time, it meant nothing in reality when he was really only the Master of  _Ghosts’_  Time.

Ghosts who stopped, who didn’t move forward, who stayed in one place with one obsession, whose warmth had left them and the only thing they could do now was fall to insanity—to repeat their actions over and over and hope it satisfied their obsession. Clockwork was the one who had to push them forward himself, because they couldn’t do it on their own.

Time in the Ghost Zone was relative to each individual—the paths of its inhabitants were predictable and straight and endless, and if a ghost was going to head deeper and deeper into darkness until they became a danger, Clockwork had to nudge their path so they could start walking a different one. He was a keeper of time and Death itself, but he still remembered humanity—so he sought to do  _good_ —even if it was uninvited.

Maybe he couldn’t change the human world he loved so much, but he could change his ghostly one. He didn’t have to watch countless deaths and tragedies that could be avoided, because he could stop them. He hid the tears he shed for the humans, the poor, short-lived, naive humans—and put on a stoic mask for the ghosts that needed his help—however unwanted it may have been.

He thought it would always be that way—until one day, he watched a boy walk into an inactive portal.

Danny Fenton had been just as insignificant and small as the rest of the humans, his decisions changing the world little by little as life moved forward—but then he decided to try fixing his parents’ invention, and suddenly  _everything_  changed.

Clockwork watched as the human world and its time moved forward—and for the first time, a ghost moved forward with it.

And Clockwork saw his paths, so varied and different and extreme, so different from the ghosts in the Ghost Zone. He didn’t stick to one path, but like the human he was supposed to be, he had  _countless_.

Danny Fenton chose to be a hero. He was exactly the innocent, naive, kind, and just human that Clockwork loved the most—and as Clockwork watched him grow, he realized that this was the one human he  _could_  guide, because he wasn’t just a human.

Danny Phantom was a ghost.

And like every ghost, Clockwork could nudge his path, little by little… and Clockwork could only hope the boy would stay true, and not stray into the dark like his potential could.

So then maybe, that tragic future the boy held could be avoided—and Clockwork wouldn’t have to cry, because everyone was safe and alive and their time would not be cut short.

Danny’s decisions were suddenly bigger—they had more impact, but also more pressure. Clockwork watched through his window in his tower as the boy would save his town and his world and do it all despite the hate and fear the humans held for him.

In one sad future, he lost his family and destroyed the world. In another, better one, he rose to the stars as a great hero, and nothing else mattered but that he did right.

Clockwork smiled, and quietly nudged Danny toward the path of light. The Master of Time had no influence on humans, but this half-ghost… he did. And he could move the  _world_.

Humans fascinated him—he would have liked to keep watching them, forever and ever, especially if Danny could change the world. And  _when_  he did… well, Clockwork thought, then everything would be as it should be.


End file.
